directed by the evil spirit that reigns there, is belching forth the lava of political corruption in a current broad and deep, which is sweeping with frightful velocity over the whole length and breadth of the land, bidding fair to leave unscathed no green spot or living thing; while on its bosom are riding, like demons on the waves of hell, the imps of that evil spirit, and fiendishly taunting all those who dare resist its destroying course with the hopelessness of their effort; and, knowing this, I cannot deny that all may be swept away.  Broken by it I, too, may be; bow to it I never will.  The probability that we may fall in the struggle ought not to deter us from the support of a cause we believe to be just; it shall not deter me.  If ever I feel the soul within me elevate and expand to those dimensions not wholly unworthy of its almighty Architect, it is when I contemplate the cause of my country deserted by all the world beside, and I standing up boldly and alone, and hurling defiance at her victorious oppressors.  Here, without contemplating consequences, before high heaven and in the face of the world, I swear eternal fidelity to the just cause, as I deem it, of the land of my life, my liberty, and my love.  And who that thinks with me will not fearlessly adopt the oath that I take?  Let none falter who thinks he is right, and we may succeed.  But if, after all, we shall fail, be it so.  We still shall have the proud consolation of saying to our consciences, and to the departed shade of our country’s freedom, that the cause approved of our judgment, and adored of our hearts, in disaster, in chains, in torture, in death, we never faltered in defending.

TO JOHN T. STUART.

Springfield, December 23, 1839. 
Dear Stuart: 

Dr. Henry will write you all the political news.  I write this about some little matters of business.  You recollect you told me you had drawn the Chicago Masark money, and sent it to the claimants.  A hawk-billed Yankee is here besetting me at every turn I take, saying that Robert Kinzie never received the eighty dollars to which he was entitled.  Can you tell me anything about the matter?  Again, old Mr. Wright, who lives up South Fork somewhere, is teasing me continually about some deeds which he says he left with you, but which I can find nothing of.  Can you tell me where they are?  The Legislature is in session and has suffered the bank to forfeit its charter without benefit of clergy.  There seems to be little disposition to resuscitate it.

Whenever a letter comes from you to Mrs._____________ I carry it to her,
and then I see Betty; she is a tolerable nice “fellow” now.  Maybe I will
write again when I get more time.

Your friend as ever, A. Lincoln

P. S.—­The Democratic giant is here, but he is not much worth talking about.  A.L.

1840 Circular from whig committee.